Ælfwine of Wells

# Ælfwine of Wells: A Personal Travel Diary

A Journey Through Time

I’ve always been drawn to places with a deep sense of history, and my recent trip to Wells in Somerset was no exception. It wasn't just the famous cathedral that called to me, but the whisper of a name I’d stumbled upon in an old book: Ælfwine. An Anglo-Saxon bishop who served here over a thousand years ago, around 997 AD. His tenure was tragically short, but his story, however faint, pulled me in. This trip became less about sightseeing and more about connecting with a sliver of time long past, about walking the same ground someone walked a millennium ago.

Walking in Ancient Footsteps

The first view of Wells Cathedral is breathtaking, but I found myself most captivated by the older, quieter corners. I spent a morning just wandering the grounds, thinking about what this place must have looked like in Ælfwine's time. The grand Gothic structure we see now wasn't there yet; his church would have been older, smaller, perhaps more humble. I tried to peel back the layers in my mind, to imagine the sounds of Old English being spoken where now tourists chatter in a dozen different languages.

• Standing in the quiet of the Chapter House, feeling the incredible weight of centuries.
• Finding a small, worn carving that my guide said might predate the Norman conquest.
• Simply sitting on a bench in the green, watching the cathedral walls change colour in the afternoon sun.

More Than Stone and Glass

It’s easy to get lost in the architecture, but this trip was a good reminder that history is about people. Ælfwine was a real person who lived, worked, and died here. He would have had worries, hopes, and a daily routine, just like us. His story is a poignant one—becoming bishop only to pass away a year later. It makes you think about the fleeting nature of our own lives and the marks we leave behind. His mark is a quiet one, a single line in the historical record, but it’s enough to spark the imagination a thousand years later.

A Reflection on the Way Home

Driving away from Wells, I felt a unusual sense of peace. There’s a comfort in realizing how small our individual stories are in the grand sweep of time, yet how we’re all part of one long, continuous thread. Ælfwine’s brief chapter is woven into the fabric of that place forever. My little modern pilgrimage to learn about him was a connection across the ages. It wasn’t about dramatic discoveries, but about quiet reflection. It’s a trip that will stay with me, a gentle reminder to look for the deeper, older stories hidden just beneath the surface of the places we visit.